Entertainment
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ByTreva Bowdoin/
A portion of LSU gymnast Olivia "Livvy" Dunne's astonishing social media earnings come from sponsorship deals with clothing brands including American Eagle and Vuori. This puts pressure on the athlete to nail the landing every time she puts an outfit together, but she doesn't always make the podium.
Dunne told Elle that it's actually fashion that sparked her interest in gymnastics. When she was a toddler, she fell in love with a cousin's bedazzled leotard and decided to take up tumbling to earn one of her own. She eventually parlayed her skills into a huge social media following by also being attractive and preternaturally good at creating attention-grabbing content. She even caught the eye of The New York Timesin 2022 — the publication printed a headline containing the words "Sex Sells" next to a photo of Dunne wearing one of her LSU leotards. The athlete was taken aback by the article's critical tone and the picture it was seemingly using to make the point that she caters to the male gaze. "That's what we have to wear," she pointed out on the "Full Send Podcast." Dunne also dragged The New York Times on TikTok.
While Dunne's sparkly, school-issued leos are definitely appropriate for her gymnastics competitions, she doesn't always pick the best outfits for the job when given more freedom to make fashion choices for other occasions.
Her questionable gymnastics attire proved lucrative
Doing gymnastics in apparel that would normally be considered inappropriate for flipping around in actually helped Olivia Dunne become a social media sensation. She told the New York Post that she began posting videos of herself showcasing her acrobatic skills on Instagram at the beginning of the pandemic, and they started blowing up. It might have helped that she had a schtick that helped her stand out from other gymnasts sharing content on social media: She was filming on the beach and wearing bikinis. However, Dunne believes her dedication to her craft also had something to do with her success. "I actually think taking social media so seriously is what separates me in this space," she said.
Dunne eventually took her talents over to TikTok, where she can sometimes be seen performing her "beach-nastics" in a string bikini. This seems like a perilous enterprise, as there's always the chance that those strings might come untied while she's doing a back handspring or flip — they aren't exactly designed to withstand strenuous athletic activity.
@livvy beach-nastics 😌 #foryou #florida #beach #gymnastics
On TikTok, Dunne has joked that she deserves her own "My Strange Addiction" episode because she has such a huge collection of bikinis. She's also admitted to being a fast fashion buyer, but she's discovered that two-piece bottoms from Shein make better headscarvesbecause their coverage isn't great.
Olivia Dunne's Coachella regrets
By her own admission, Olivia Dunne took her love of swimwear a bit too far at Coachella. On TikTok, she rated some of the outfits she's worn to the music festival, including two different looks that were pretty much bikinis and cover-ups that didn't cover much. She gave both a score of four out of 10. One of the two-pieces was black, and she paired it with a sheer crop top and skirt set studded with pearls. For her footwear, she rocked a pair of white cowboy boots that were discordant with the rest of the look."There's literally nothing there," Dunne said of the ensemble. She noted that it was on-trend when she wore it but added, "I don't think I'd ever wear this again."
@livvy I need Coachella redemption #foryou #coachella #coachellaoutfit #fitcheck
♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
The second outfit included a white, off-the-shoulder crop top with raw edges. She finished that look with white bikini bottoms and a crocheted skirt with pom poms dangling from the bottom hem. "This isn't even an outfit. It's like a bikini again," Dunne said.
While Dunne is willing to admit that she sometimes wears clothing that might be a bit too revealing, she's made it clear that the onus is not on her to control the poor manners of fans who might react to her content like cartoon wolves with tongues unrolling from their dropped jaws. "As a woman, you're not responsible for how a man looks at you and objectifies you," she said on "Today." Preach, girl!
It's hard to giddyup in a backless gown
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Olivia Dunne makes mounting a beam look like a piece of cake, so it probably wasn't hard for her to get up on the back of a horse at the 2023 American Country Music Awards in Frisco, Texas, but it also was a risky move. For the event, she wore a backless silver dress that showed off her UV ray exposure — we'll call the visible lines her bikini top left behind a "beach-nastics" tan instead of a farmer's tan. While on the back of an equine attendee named Sheriff, Dunne came disastrously close to suffering a wardrobe malfunction due to her dress' open sides.
@livvy theres a new sheriff in town... #foryou
The influencer shared a video on TikTok of poor Sheriff looking so over it as she leaned forward to touch his mane, causing the side of her gown to gape open. She also twirled an imaginary lasso over her head. Dunne had kicked off her tall platform sandals before climbing onto Sheriff's saddle, presumably because they wouldn't properly fit in the stirrups. She had hiked the front of her dress up as well, so its front slit came in handy.
The cheeky song Dunne chose to accompany her video was Big & Rich's "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)." However, some fans weren't buying her as an exceptionally glamorous cowgirl. One of her Instagram followers scoffed, "Fake wannabe trying to be country."
The outfits that begged for a 'who wore it better' showdown
As another athlete with a robust social media following, golfer Paige Spiranac has defended Olivia Dunne before. In response to those who have criticized the way Dunne has gained her wealth, Spiranac tweeted, "She's built a successful business (at 20) all while being a student-athlete. That's bada**." Dunne later returned the love on Instagram, sharing a photo of her and Spiranac posing together at the 2024Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Release party. While it's clear that there's no rivalry between the two swimsuit models, their outfit choices had the internet pitting them against each other.
Dunne and Spiranac — who appeared on the cover of theSports Illustrated Swimsuit 60th Anniversary Issue — were twinning in back dresses with sheer panels that showcased their stomachs and legs. Their strikingly similar threads landed them multiple threads on the Celeb Battles subreddit, including a "who wore it better" showdown and a "sex appeal" throwdown. Dunne won both, but one Redditor snarked, "Terrible photo. They look like two moms at a hockey tournament having a girls night out." Dunne also seemed uncertain as to whether her gown was a hit or a swing and a miss. "I can't tell if it's giving Pamela Anderson or cigarette mom," she wrote on TikTok.
Her sister called her out over her Halloween costume
Olivia Dunne's sister, Julz Dunne, didn't believe that the gymnast was properly educated about Essosi and Westerosi cultures before deciding to dress up like Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons for Halloween in 2023. "Have you even watched GOT?" Julz asked her sibling on Instagram. Olivia replied, "Wouldn't you like to know weather boy." (Okay, so that was definitely a "no," right?)
What possibly made Julz question Olivia's knowledge about the khaleesi was that Olivia's tan dress didn't look like any of the costumes Emilia Clarke wore on "Game of Thrones." It featured front cutouts with knotted detailing and a horizontal row of white rings. The front was open, revealing Dunne's matching underwear. Its flimsiness was giving fast fashion, and some of Dunne's fans noted that it didn't seem to fit her very well — her underboob area was starting to turn bright red. "That looks like it hurts," one fan wrote on TikTok. "OUCH I hope your okay girl," another comment read.
Olivia's outfit was definitely impractical for riding atop scaly dragons, and her TikTok was inundated with comments from male fans complaining that she had kicked off November by sharing a video of her skimpy Halloween costume. (If you know, you know.) But as Olivia told Elle, "It's not a girl's responsibility how a man looks at her or how he acts."
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